With the current climate negotiations reaching a conclusion in Paris this coming December, we are at a pivotal moment in the global effort to address climate change and shift to a low-carbon development path. The United States and China, which together make up 38 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions (as of 2012), are playing an important role.

Yet there has been confusion about China’s climate action commitments, as well as the fact that both China and the U.S. are taking significant action. Here’s a look at China’s progress to date, and what implications it has for international climate action.

As China unveiled its contribution (“INDC”) to the international climate negotiations, affirming the pledges it made in its joint announcement with the U.S. in November, a spokesman for Christian Aid, Mohamed Adow, said, “The pledge marks a significant shift away from a fossil fuel-intensive development path to one focused on renewables on a scale the world has never yet seen.” Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute called it “a serious and credible” effort, and said “China’s commitment was made possible by its ambitious clean energy policies and investments enacted over the past decade.”

For the full briefing notice including speakers, topics, and the video recording, click here

At this week’s U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington, D.C., the two countries built on their robust cooperation on climate change and clean energy. The U.S. and China pledged to work together to address obstacles to an “ambitious global climate agreement” at this December’s Conference of the Parties in Paris. They also agreed to continue to discuss each country’s post-2020 plans, and announced a new dialogue on domestic policy. The countries highlighted their progress on the initiatives they jointly announced in November, such as phasing down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and expanding the Clean Energy Research Center (CERC).

With the U.S. release of its proposal for the international climate negotiations and proposals expected soon from other countries, the negotiations are intensifying. A key factor in this dynamic is China’s November commitment to peak its emissions and scale up non-fossil energy, which has shifted the global debate on climate action. China is already taking action on multiple fronts to meet its new goals.

Professor Qi Ye, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, commented at London-based think tank IPPR on his expectations for China’s upcoming 13th Five Year Plan, which will go into effect early next year. Profesor Qi expects the Chinese government to place a cap on CO2 emissions—consistent with the planned carbon market starting next year—and assign “absolute coal consumption caps” to more than the 30% of provinces presently covered. He also emphasized that China is making efforts to reach a peak in CO2 emissions earlier than its 2030 target. These comments come in the wake of reports that China’s coal consumption fell in 2014.

ChinaFAQs expert Angel Hsu and her team at Yale’s Environmental Performance Measurement program have developed an interactive timeline that lays out the steps China is expected to take in developing, enacting and implementing its next Five Year Plan, which will orient the country’s economic and social policy. The 13th Five Year Plan will be announced in early 2016 and will be in place until the 14th Five Year Plan in 2021. The timeline provides details on dates, procedure, and stakeholder involvement for each stage of the process. Past plans have set targets relating to energy and carbon intensity, coal and energy consumption, energy efficiency, and clean energy development. The upcoming 13th Five Year Plan is likely to include additional measures to bend the curve of China’s greenhouse gas emissions downward, and will provide insight into how China will strive to meet its new climate targets for 2030.

ChinaFAQs expert Dan Kammen describes the implications of the U.S.-China climate accord for the international climate negotiations and for each country. Kammen emphasizes the necessity of clean technologies for China’s continued economic growth, and recommends that both countries pursue innovation regarding their electrical grids and scale up regional carbon pricing policies.

Q: What did the U.S. and China pledge in their November 11, 2014 joint announcement on climate change?

Q: Is it true that under its new pledges, China might avoid doing anything to address climate change until 2030?A: No. China will need to take stronger near-term action to meet its commitments and has begun to do so.

Q: Is China starting from scratch in trying to fulfill its pledges, or has it already taken steps in this direction?A: China is already taking action on multiple fronts to address the climate problem.

Q: Do we have reason to believe that China will follow through on its pledges?A: Yes. China has already made progress on the low carbon building blocks and has strong reasons of national interest to build on its current efforts.

Q: Does it make sense for the U.S. to pursue vigorous action on climate change given China’s commitments?A: Yes. China is now at a turning point regarding air quality and climate action, and the two countries can inspire each other and the world to take ambitious steps.

And that’s the signal out of Beijing from yesterday’s summit between President Obama and President Xi Jinping. President Obama pledged to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. President Xi announced targets to peak carbon dioxide emissions around 2030—with the intention to peak sooner—and to increase China’s non-fossil fuel share of energy to around 20 percent by 2030. Next steps will be important, but this accord signals a significant move forward for climate action—in the United States, in China, and internationally.

When President Obama and President Xi Jinping meet next week in Beijing, climate change and energy will be important topics of discussion. As the world’s two biggest emitters, leadership by the U.S. and China is critical as each country’s actions are closely watched by the other and the international community. In addition, interest was heightened when a senior Chinese official talked about the possibility of peak emissions in China at the UN Climate Summit in September.

The Long March was a watershed moment in Chinese history—the moment Mao Zedong’s nascent Communist Party escaped disaster in 1934 en route to forming a new nation. Fast forward 80 years, and China is poised to embark on a new Long March – but this time away from climate change and environmental damage toward a sustainable future.

Though a burst of clear skies on Monday allowed Beijingers to marvel at a magnificent Mid-Autumn Festival moon, a blanket of smog choked the capital the next morning, reminding citizens of China’s grave air pollution woes.

On Friday the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress voted to approve amendments to China’s Environmental Protection Law. These amendments mark the first time China’s Environmental Protection Law has been updated in 25 years.

The amendments include tougher penalties for polluters, including no limits on fines imposed on polluters and the potential of up to 15 days in prison for managers of enterprises that do not comply with the new amendments.

One year ago, the United States and China declared in their Joint Statement on Climate Change that “forceful, nationally appropriate action by the United States and China—including large-scale cooperative action—is more critical than ever. Such action is crucial both to contain climate change and to set the kind of powerful example that can inspire the world.”

Amidst headlines detailing off-the-charts air pollution in Beijing, it may come as a surprise that China’s latest environmental scorecard does boast bright spots. The 2014 Yale Environmental Performance Index (EPI) – a biennial global ranking of how well countries perform on a range of critical environmental issues – ranks China at 118 out of 178 countries. With respect to other emerging economies with rapid growth and development, China does not fare as well overall as Brazil (77th), Russia (73rd), or South Africa (72th), but is considerably ahead of India, which ranked 155th. However, China is a leader in addressing climate change and is taking corrective action to address weaknesses.

As China charts its energy future, the country is setting its sights on natural gas. The Chinese government aims to double the share of natural gas in its energy mix by 2015—including unconventional sources like gas from shale and coal-bed methane. Shale gas development in China is still in the nascent, exploratory phases, but estimates place China’s shale gas reserves among the largest in the world.

When Tianjin launched its carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) on Dec 26th 2013, it became the fifth ETS operating in China, following Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong. Now that five of seven pilots have started trading and the rest are expected to start in 2014, the aggregate of all emissions regulated in China through the seven pilots will be the second largest in the world, following only the European Union.

A U.S.-Chinese team led by the Harvard China Project has developed a comprehensive framework for evaluating the economic and environmental costs and benefits of national policies to control air pollution and CO2 emissions in China.

Contrary to some perceptions of Chinese inaction on air pollution, China’s SO2 control policy of 2006-2010 may have been one of the most swiftly successful air pollution policies on record judged by key criteria: sulfur emissions fell sharply and prevented as many as 74,000 premature deaths from fine particle (PM2.5) air pollution in 2010 alone, all at little economic cost.

Looking to the future, a modest tax on carbon dioxide, starting small and rising to about $6.50 per ton in 2020 (in 2007 dollars), could lead to a 19% reduction in China’s CO2 emissions in 2020 compared to a scenario with no tax, with little effect on GDP growth and consumption over the long run.

Such a carbon tax would also deliver powerful ancillary benefits: reduced concentrations of an array of domestic air pollutants and prevention of as many as 89,000 premature deaths a year by 2020.

Confronted with a cooling economy and global headlines declaring an “Airpocalypse”, China faces challenges on multiple fronts. While many people are quick to point out the hurdles, the reality is that its leaders are moving ahead with significant policy measures and reforms. If successful, these actions will not only help drive China’s economic development, they will address another mounting threat: climate change.

Last week, China’s leadership met at the Third Plenum of the Central Committee to outline major reforms China will undertake over the next decade. While China faces multiple challenges, reforms related to greater environmental protection and low-carbon development were high on the agenda. China’s leaders understand the challenges and are taking actions that can have significant impact.

Last month, China’s State Council announced a new action plan to combat air pollution, which included a prohibition of new coal-fired power plants in the three most important metropolitan areas around Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou (known as the “key-three city clusters”).1 This followed a previous announcement of a $275 billion investment by the central government in improving air quality. The action plan aims to tackle the increasingly severe air pollution problem in China, which is largely caused by its massive consumption of coal.

China has recently announced a plan to tackle air pollution across the country. The plan includes setting regional targets on coal use and taking high-polluting vehicles from the streets. The plan also sets target levels for regional atmospheric pollution, with particular attention paid to reducing particulate matter, which is an especially severe problem in China.

ChinaFAQs climate and energy experts and top media representatives took part in a ChinaFAQs press call on July 8th to preview the July 10th and 11th U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), which for the first time will include a designated Climate Change Working Group. ChinaFAQs network experts discussed recent events and potential areas of U.S.-China cooperation, including air pollution, shale gas, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and more. The experts also offered insights into what the S&ED will mean for U.S.

This week China launched its first pilot emission trading program. This development is potentially a major marker in China’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Shenzhen Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) program will cover some 635 industrial companies from 26 industries. This is the first of seven proposed pilot GHG cap-and-trade schemes in China, which China has been developing since 2011.

China’s 12th Five Year Plan includes an array of energy targets that it hopes to achieve by 2015. The targets, such as increasing the share of non-fossil energy to 11.4% of the total energy supply and cutting the economy’s carbon intensity by 17% by 2015, are part of a larger plan for China to reach a 40-45% reduction in carbon intensity by 2020 relative to 2005 levels. ChinaFAQs expert Trevor Houser has crunched the numbers provided by China’s National Bureau of Statistics and come up with a report card on the country’s progress towards achieving its climate and energy goals.

Once again, China’s ability to handle a changing climate is being tested.

In 2013, rainfall in south China’s Yunnan province dropped 70 percent below average levels. This, combined with similar rainfall decline over the past three years, has turned the once water-abundant region into a much drier place.

China is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change. An extreme weather event like Yunnan’s years-long drought is just one of many problems it faces.

The United States and China are the world’s two largest economies. They are also the two largest producers and consumers of coal and the largest emitters of carbon dioxide. In recent years, however, their paths on coal have started to diverge.

Over the last few years, coal consumption has dropped dramatically in the United States, mainly due to low natural gas prices. In response to weak domestic demand, the U.S. coal industry has been rushing to find its way out to the international market. Last year, U.S.

With the calendar turning to 2013, the long-awaited next phase in a campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will soon take place in China.

Five Chinese cities and two provinces will begin pilot programs to cap the amount of carbon dioxide key polluters can emit with a system of tradable allowances. Polluters that emit beyond the cap are required to buy more carbon allowances; those that become more efficient can sell allowances they no longer need.

The recent spate of severe air pollution in China has shone a spotlight on the need for strong environmental regulation in China and prompted the government to move forward with a number of new environmental policies and laws – some of which have been languishing in the proposal stage for years.

Leading China experts and top media representatives participated in a ChinaFAQs press call today on how the country will address pressing environmental, climate and energy challenges at home and globally in the coming years. At the National People’s Congress beginning March 5, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are expected to formally become China’s president and premier, respectively. Other top spots in China’s ministries will also be assigned, with implications for China’s future of low-carbon development and for the U.S. The briefing was one of ChinaFAQs’ events highlighting the reasons for China’s action on low-carbon energy, including: energy security, economic competitiveness through technological innovation, and climate and environmental impacts.

As China continues its leadership transition next week at the National People’s Congress, many are wondering how the country will confront its pressing environmental, climate, and energy challenges. On Friday, March 1 at 9 a.m. EST, WRI’s ChinaFAQs network will bring together leading experts for a press teleconference to discuss these issues.

ChinaFAQs Expert Alex Wang, Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, has started a conversation about China’s air quality situation at the Asia Society’s ChinaFile blog. In “Airpocalypse Now: China’s Tipping Point?”, Wang, ChinaFAQs Expert Deborah Seligsohn, and other leading China experts discuss what Chinese leaders are doing and what more could be done to clean up China’s air. Read the full conversation at ChinaFile…

As the biggest coal-consuming and coal-producing nation in the world, China is perhaps an unlikely place to find a burgeoning wind power industry. Yet today China is the biggest wind power market in the world and builds almost all its wind turbines at home. China’s wind power capacity has increased over a hundredfold in the past decade (from 344 MW in 2000 to 44,733 MW in 2010) and estimates for 2012 put installed wind capacity at about 80 GW (see Figure 1). Just a decade ago the country had only a handful of wind turbines in operation—all imported from Europe and the United States.

News over the past five days in many parts of northern China have centered around the unprecedented air pollution shrouding several northern cities, including the capital. The “Airpocalypse,” so dubbed by micro-bloggers, has elicited a strong, unambiguous response frot the public and the media – causing many to call a spade a spade by casting away euphemisms like fog in favor of more candid descriptors like smog and pollution. It has also inspired this poignant music video lamenting the lost of Beijing to the evil forces of pollution.

The latest International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2012 re-confirms the dangerous path the world is on–a path of increasing dependence on coal, which carries serious environmental risks for people and the planet. According to the report, the world will burn 1.2 billion metric tons more coal per year by 2017 compared to today, surpassing oil as the world’s top energy source.

Although major greenhouse-gas emitting countries were criticized at the latest round of climate negotiations in Doha for failing to show enough ambition, an event held during the second week highlighted leadership from Germany, China, Morocco, and South Africa on clean and renewable energy. Hosted by Peter Altmaier, Federal Environment Minister of Germany, and moderated by the President of the World Resources Institute, Andrew Steer, the panel also included Xie Zhenhua, Vice-Chair of China’s NDRC, Nandi Mayathula Khoza, Minister of Agriculture of South Africa’s Gauteng province, and Fouad Douiri, Morocco’s Energy and Environment Minister.

The next round of United Nations climate negotiations is gearing up to take place starting next week in Doha Qatar, where countries will look to both China and the United States to see whether domestic political events will provide any momentum for the stalling talks. However, because of the proximity of the U.S. Presidential Election and the start of China’s once-in-a-decade leadership transition that will culminate in March, it is not expected that the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) will be bringing too much by way of game-changing developments to Doha. Instead, we can expect most of the discussions in Doha to focus on securing final details for a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, primarily for the E.U. and now Australia, as well as starting to formulate language for a new deal that will be decided by 2015.

Last Friday, experts from the ChinaFAQs Network and top media representatives participated on a press call on climate and energy policy under China’s incoming president, Xi Jinping, and other new leaders. The participants focused on the drivers underlying China’s energy and climate policies and actions. Key issues included whether the country can sustain its renewable energy growth, confront rising coal demand, and follow through on its climate change targets in the 12th five-year plan. All of these issues are emerging as the country faces its first major economic slowdown in more than a decade. This blog post highlights experts’ discussion during the press call.

When it comes to coal consumption, no other nation comes close to China. The country reigns as the world’s largest coal user, burning almost half of the global total each year. About 70 percent of China’s total energy consumption and nearly 80 percent of its electricity production come from coal, and its recent shift from being a historical net coal exporter to the world’s largest net coal importer took only three years.

China’s great thirst for coal is undeniably troubling from a sustainable development standpoint. However, the situation may be changing…

On October 12, ChinaFAQs and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) held a briefing on Capitol Hill about the issues driving China’s renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate policies. While China and the United States differ in important respects, they have some similar challenges and opportunities relating to energy. Both face economic, employment, energy security, and environmental challenges. The United States and China both cooperate and compete with each other on clean energy initiatives and technology.

Presentation by Stephen Munro, Policy and International Analyst, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, given at a Congressional briefing “Why China Is Acting on Clean Energy: Successes, Challenges, and Implications for U.S. Policies”, Washington, D.C., October 12, 2012.

Presentation by Joanna Lewis, Assistant Professor of Science, Technology, and International Affairs, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, given at a Congressional briefing “Why China Is Acting on Clean Energy: Successes, Challenges, and Implications for U.S. Policies”, Washington, D.C., October 12, 2012.

ChinaFAQs Expert and Tufts University Professor Kelly Sims Gallagher recently gave a presentation on the global diffusion of cleaner energy technologies at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute. Her presentation offers a preview of her new book on the topic, forthcoming from The MIT Press in 2013. The book identifies the conditions necessary for motivating the international diffusion of cleaner energy technologies, and empirically investigates the extent to which certain barriers and incentives to their movement across international borders are valid in the Chinese context.

After meeting in Russia in early September, representatives of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) nations, including China and the U.S., reached an agreement on a list of environmental goods on which to cut tariffs to 5 percent or less by 2015.

The State of Play of Chinese Policy and Bilateral Issues

The Obama administration’s fourth major meeting with China, involving multiple Cabinet Secretaries and Chinese Ministers, the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), will be held May 3 and 4 in Beijing. As usual, the U.S. delegation will be lead by Secretaries Clinton and Geithner, and their Chinese hosts will be Vice Premier Wang Qishan (who focuses on economic policy) and State Councilor Dai Bingguo (responsible for foreign policy).

This ChinaFAQs Issue Brief highlights opportunities in the global clean energy revolution, discusses the comparative strengths of each nation, and provides examples of proposals and policies that the U.S. can employ to seize these opportunities by encouraging clean energy development. The brief stresses that the U.S. should capitalize on its strengths and take a strategic approach to innovation and commercialization. (Click to download)

This ChinaFAQs Issue Brief profiles a selection of recent U.S.-China cooperative projects in clean energy, offering a flavor of the breadth and depth of Sino-American cooperation, as well as potential benefits and challenges.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, expected to become president next year, is visiting Washington the week of February 13th. This has drawn attention to the future of the U.S.-China relationship. The visit presents an attractive platform to discuss climate and energy issues, which have often represented areas of cooperation between the two countries. We asked our panel of ChinaFAQs experts to provide their insights on top issues for new leadership to address on climate and energy, as well as prospects for the U.S.-China relationship on climate and energy under a Xi presidency.

I first would like to thank the members of the Commission for the opportunity to testify to this important group. It is an honor and a privilege.

I have been asked to speak about China’s approach to securing its energy supplies and implications for the United States. I will discuss China’s approach, whether it is impacting global energy markets and the competitive prospects of American energy companies, how Beijing’s energy security drive is influencing maritime territorial and sea lane disputes in the seas around Asia, and some suggestions on U.S. policy towards the developments.

Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the deliberations of this Commission. My name is Sarah Forbes, and I am a Senior Associate for the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute. I am also manager of the World Resources Institute’s Shale Gas Initiative. The World Resources Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan environmental think tank that goes beyond research to provide practical solutions to the world’s most urgent environmental and development challenges. We work in partnership with scientists, businesses, governments, and non-governmental organizations in more than seventy countries to provide information, tools, and analysis to provide for human well-being.

As part of its green diplomacy strategy and move to promote a positive image in Durban, China for the first time highlighted its own development aid in the context of South-South capacity building and financial assistance with least-developed countries (LDCs) and small-island states (SIDs).

On December 5, Xie Zhenhua, NDRC Vice Minister and head of the Chinese delegation in Durban, announced four major areas of investment through South-South collaboration, including...

ChinaFAQs expert Angel Hsu and her colleagues from the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy team up with Columbia University, Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning and City University of Hong Kong for this report to help guide effective pollution control and natural resource management.

The UN Climate Conference in Durban, South Africa, concluded over the weekend with a consensus to negotiate an agreement that will include all major emitters of warming gases. The conference agreed to a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, extended the work of the group for Long-term Cooperative Action, and most significantly established new negotiations under the Durban Platform. Launching these negotiations was hailed as major progress around the world (Bloomberg, The Statesman, Xinhua). For the first time the world’s three major emitters (by total amount of greenhouse gases emitted), China, the United States and India, have agreed to begin negotiations for an international “protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force,” indicating that there will be actions and efforts by all countries. (For the implications of this complex legal wording, see my colleague Jake Werksman’s discussion on WRI Insights).

The idea of a total cap on energy consumption in China, first suggested last March before the National People’s Congress has reemerged in Durban, and surprisingly there are now suggestions that China might consider some kind of a cap on carbon emissions. This has been suggested apparently as part of domestic policy rather than as a negotiating position, but details are very sketchy.

When China launched its first official pavilion at a UN climate conference on Sunday, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat Cristiana Figueres was there alongside China’s NDRC Vice Minister Xie Zhenhua to cut the ribbon. Swarmed by journalists in the standing-room only conference center of the China pavilion in Durban, Figueres applauded China for being a “trend-setter” in global renewable energy, resonating around the world and during the first week of climate negotiations in Durban.

As the first week of the UN climate negotiations in Durban are underway, one of the most persistent themes has been how to bridge gaps - the divide between the developed and developing countries, many of whom disagree about whether the Kyoto Protocol should be extended into a second commitment period; the hole in climate finance pledges from developed countries; and the ambition or emissions gap between the Copenhagen pledges and the stabilization of global temperatures below a 2 degrees Celsius increase from pre-industrial levels.

At the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii last week, Chinese President Hu Jintao joined US President Obama and other APEC leaders in signing a pledge to cut tariffs on an undesignated list of environmental goods and services to 5 percent by 2015. APEC members also pledged to eliminate domestic content requirements on goods and services by 2012. Together, the 21 APEC economies account for 60 percent of global trade in environmental goods and services, and the global market for environmental technologies in 2008 represented $782 billion, with nearly $300 billion in the US, according to a US Commerce Department estimate. A spokesman for one organization representing US manufacturers hailed the commitment as a “huge” outcome. Read the full story at Reuters

Just last week the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) announced public consultation for new regulations that would establish a standard for small particulate matter (PM 2.5), an important public health advance. China’s official media outlet Xinhua reported the new standard, which MEP proposes bringing into effect nationwide by 2016, and that Shanghai believes its monitoring capacity is sufficiently ahead of this timeline to implement as early as next year. We have heard elsewhere that Beijing, too, is likely to move earlier than 2016. MEP’s announcement and an FAQ describing the policy are already on the web in Chinese, but the English-language website has not yet been updated. The Xinhua report also noted the importance of public pressure in bringing about environmental improvements.

Beijing’s poor air quality earlier this month, akin to what was routinely seen in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s, garnered global headlines. Both Chinese and international press have focused on the differences in monitoring between China’s air quality index and a monitor for small particulates located at the US Embassy in Beijing.

The many climate and energy pieces of China’s 12th Five Year Plan appear to be moving into place. Most recently, Chinese Climate Change Minister Xie Zhenhua announced that China was about to come out with a full plan for the 17% carbon emissions reduction target in the Plan (2011-2015). In March, China announced an initial set of initiatives to control the growth in carbon emissions, and the 17% figure is part of the larger goal or reducing emissions by 40-45% by 2020.

Recent weeks have seen a spate of announcements concerning environmental harms ranging from those stemming from the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydropower project, to heavy metal pollution and increasingly vigorous enforcement actions by China’s Environmental Ministry.

A new study by Chinese researchers finds that China’s provinces could take very different paths to achieving China’s 2020 goal of reducing carbon intensity by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels. One energy-poor province included in the study, for instance, could rely on boosting nuclear power – while another coal-rich province could emphasize energy efficiency and strong economic growth.

With Premier Wen Jiabao’s announcements on the 12th Five-Year Plan (12th FYP), China is tasked with improving the national energy intensity of its economy (energy per unit of GDP) by 16% over the next five years.1 Attention now turns to allocation of local-level targets. For the 12th FYP, the Chinese government has indicated that it seeks to use a more scientific methodology to better estimate the varying potential for energy saving across the provinces, to facilitate a structural shift to low-carbon development, as well as to achieve an equitable distribution of targets. What would such a methodology look like, and what targets would result from it?

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), with collaboration from China’s Energy Research Institute (ERI), has developed a sector-based methodology for target allocation among the provinces. The methodology utilizes measurable indicators of each province’s energy and economic conditions to show transparency and effectiveness in meeting the national goal. Findings and analysis are available in a March 2011 report and highlighted here.2

When I recently testified at the House Energy and Power Subcommittee, a phrase that came up in regard to China’s energy policy was that China is pursuing “an all-of-the-above strategy,” in other words generating supply from as many sources as possible. (full hearing details) There is nothing terribly remarkable about the idea that China is pursuing diversified supply. However, the implication of the discussion was that China’s approach is focused on the supply side, and that seems backwards.

On April 5, 2011, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and ChinaFAQs held a briefing on China’s increasing role in advancing renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate policies. China is a leader in the deployment of clean energy technologies, and the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels. The United States and China cooperate on a number of clean energy initiatives, producing benefits for both countries.

In my testimony today, I will start by discussing both where China is now and its plans for the upcoming five years, and then I will talk about some of the business opportunities this creates for other countries, including the United States, that want to compete in new energy technologies.

Professor Hu’s summary describes a step-by-step process involving thousands of officials, stakeholders and experts. The article itself also shows how the Chinese government has become more interested in informing the public about government processes.

With the adoption of its Twelfth Five-Year Plan, the Chinese government has cemented key long-term strategies for greening GDP, controlling energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and key pollutants, and capitalizing on the growing low-carbon economy (full Chinese plan). Environment and climate are given the most prominent position ever in a Five Year Plan, aspirations that will be backed up by a number of concrete planning documents over the coming months.

China’s annual parliamentary session opened Saturday morning, with 3,000 National People’s Congress members and 2,000 members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) gathered in the Great Hall of the People to hear Premier Wen Jiabao deliver the annual report reviewing the work of the government in 2010 and looking forward to the Twelfth Five Year Plan, including key targets of the Twelfth Five Year Plan.

China’s annual political meetings begin on Thursday March 3 and the major outcome will be the announcement of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015). Votes at both the advisory China People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, opening March 3) and the National People’s Congress (NPC, opening March 5) are not in question. But the content of the Five-Year Plan, as well as various government work reports and major pieces of legislation, are only revealed during the meetings.

Energy and water constraints have emerged as critical sustainability issues for China’s economy – particularly if the country is to continue to see significant GDP growth and provide the estimated 10 million jobs needed annually. Asia Water Project recently posed questions about the water-energy nexus to Professor Zou Ji, WRI’s China Country Director, and Lijin Zhong and Hua Wen of WRI’s China Water Team. Their responses are below:

China and the U.S. issued a joint statement Wednesday, January 19, covering the range of issues discussed during President Hu Jintao’s state visit to Washington this week. The White House also posted a fact sheet summarizing Hu and Obama’s agreement to enhance cooperation on climate change, clean energy, and the environment. The Department of Energy provides further detail on these Clean Energy Cooperation Announcements.

2011 will be a big year for climate and energy policy development in China, so we thought we’d highlight some of the key China energy and climate-related stories to watch out for during the course of the year. We’ve known to expect major developments now for over a year, since China’s commitments made at the Copenhagen climate talks in late 2009 were scheduled to be implemented in the 2011 12th Five Year Plan.

In the wake of China and India’s successful cooperation in the Cancun climate negotiations, it was not surprising that the two countries agreed to continue to cooperate on climate change issues during Premier Wen Jiabao’s just-concluded visit to India.

As we begin a new round of international climate negotiations in Cancun, China has taken another potentially giant step towards meeting its climate pledge. On November 4, 2010, China’s central government enacted national energy efficiency regulations that will establish national utility demand-side management, or DSM programs.

As negotiators arrive in Cancun for the next round of global climate talks, speculation once again hovers around China’s positions. China is a tough negotiator, and we can once again see it expressing concern about its core issues, including developed country mitigation commitments, technology transfer and the adequacy of financing. But as we look to negotiating positions, it is also worth stepping back for a minute to reflect on what China is doing domestically and how China’s efforts to promote energy efficiency and low carbon technologies can contribute to the global effort to combat climate change.

In addition to the Party Plenum Communique (discussed on this site last week), China’s Communist Party in its annual meeting (called a Plenum) issued an “opinion” on the 12th Five Year Plan. This essentially is a set of instructions and parameters to drafters of the plan. My colleague Fong Wee Kean in the WRI Beijing office translated the full paragraph 22 on climate change into English.

A number of Chinese and international news outlets reported Monday that China’s next energy intensity reduction target (2011-2015) is likely to be 17.3%. These articles quote a Deputy Director named Huang Li at the Chinese National Energy Administration. This does not appear to be an official announcement, but rather one official’s comments on likely policy direction. The same People’s Daily article that quotes Huang stating the 17.3% target for the next five year plan and 16.6% for the following plan (2016-2020), also quotes an official from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) as suggesting the next energy intensity target would be between 15 and 20%.

China is hosting a UN climate meeting for the first time ever this week in Tianjin. While the venue has impressed most of the international visitors and the Chinese have gone out of their way to be good hosts, much of the enthusiasm for the meeting is not captured inside the conference center. Chinese companies and NGOs are energized by the event, but most are not officially registered organizations with the UN Secretariat, and thus need to hold their events outside the official venue.

In 2004, China adopted its first nation-wide fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles. They are considered to be the world’s third toughest, behind Japan’s and Europe’s.

The standards – which called for average auto efficiency to improve by 15% by 2010 over 2003 levels – have produced significant gains, even though Chinese cars have become heavier, more powerful, and are more often equipped with automatic transmissions and pollution-control devices that can reduce efficiency.

China has since expanded the standards to cover light-duty trucks, and is eyeing further measures to improve the fuel economy of its motor vehicles.

The big news this week is that China is removing outdated equipment from another 2000 plants, and they are moving quite rapidly – the equipment is to be phased out by the end of September. These closures are part of the tougher measures Premier Wen Jiabao announced in April. While some have expressed skepticism about this move, because equipment rather than whole factories are being phased out, in fact, this looks to be a positive move. While China has made significant efficiency advances by closing whole factories, there is a limit to how many such highly inefficient factories actually exist. As the very oldest, least efficient have been phased out, more sophisticated policies that pinpoint problematic equipment are needed.

China’s State Council promulgated its first-ever regional air quality regulations on May 11. This is the first time outside of the special provisions for the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai Expo that China has set up a structure for ensuring air quality across multiple provincial and urban jurisdictions involving entire airsheds. These new regulations begin the process of institutionalizing the lessons learned during the major efforts to improve air quality for those headlining events and bringing those lessons learned both to the long-term health of those two regions and to other regions facing air quality challenges in China. The full regulations are on line in Chinese at the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s website and our colleagues at the Energy Foundation’s Beijing office have helpfully translated them into English and allowed us to post the English translation.

Notice of the General Office of the State Council about Forwarding Guiding Opinions on Pushing Forward the Joint Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution to Improve the Regional Air Quality Developed by the Ministry of Environment Protection and Relevant Departments

No. 33 [2010] of the General Office of the State Council

The people’s governments of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, all ministries and commissions of the State Council, and all institutions directly under the State Council:

The Guiding Opinions on Pushing Forward the Joint Prevention and Control of Air Pollution to Improve the Regional Air Quality raised by the Ministry of Environment Protection, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Commerce and the Bureau of Energy has been approved by the State Council and hereby forwarded to you for your earnest compliance and implementation.

Historically, China’s leaders have responded to the rising demand for energy with efforts to increase supply.

In recent years, however, these leaders have recognized that China cannot just grow its supply of energy, but must also find ways to curb demand.

While China is taking significant steps to curb demand, the nations’ leadership remains wary of embracing policies to reduce demand that could be politically unpopular and slow economic growth. As a result, China faces longer-term risks of energy shortages and economic and environmental problems.

The concept of a carbon tax is receiving more and more attention in China, and there are even some formal proposals floating around the government. It was discussed by Jiang Kejun of China’s Energy Research Institute at the recent China Green Enterprise Forum and our network expert Bo Shen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs alerted us that both the Chinese and English versions of a newspaper article on the subject have now appeared on the National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) climate change website. The Chinese article gives more detail than the English article and quotes unnamed officials from the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the State Tax Bureau as well.

Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh described the “Copenhagen Spirit” as substantially improving ties between China and India and leading to improved cooperation in related environmental areas, including hydrographic data, glaciological research and forestry. He expressed hope that an MOU signed last fall on energy technologies would yield some concrete projects, but admitted those opportunities had yet to be explored.

This week China held its second high-level discussion in two weeks on implementing its energy intensity target at the same time as disappointing first quarter numbers appeared showing that energy intensity has risen by 3.2% in the first quarter of 2010. Premier Wen Jiabao told provincial officials to use “an iron hand” in implementing energy intensity targets. This comes in the wake of last weeks’ announcement of eight new policies to enhance implementation of the 20% energy intensity target.

China’s State Council met Wednesday, April 28, and adopted eight new measures to try to spur the country in a final push to meet its 20% energy intensity reduction target during the 5 years from 2006 to the end of 2010. While the State Council’s decision has been reported in the international media, we found the specific measures only in the Chinese press, which we summarize:

In late November 2009, China announced its intention to reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions within the Chinese economy by 40-45% by 2020, as compared with a 2005 baseline. China then reported this goal to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat on January 28, 2010.

This announcement, coming on the heels of the United States’ announced pledge of a 17% reduction in absolute greenhouse gas emissions between 2005 and 2020, garnered a great deal of attention within both the US and internationally, with experts weighing in with both approval and doubts about China’s ambition.i

To enhance understanding of China’s commitment, we provide answers to the major questions related to the Chinese carbon intensity target below.

WRI and Renmin University hosted a joint seminar with Lord Nicholas Stern and his colleagues from the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute, on Thursday, March 25, in Beijing, during which Lord Stern and some of Beijing’s leading climate change scholars discussed current efforts to mitigate climate change and the challenge of maintaining global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees centigrade.

ChinaFAQs Experts Rob Bradley, Jennifer Turner, Stephen Hammer, and Angel Hsu testified before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission on April 8 to lend insight into both China’s domestic and international Green Energy and Environmental Policies.

See the Library & Data section for the complete testimonies of all four experts, or follow the links below:

China reported its commitment to a 40-45% reduction in carbon intensity by 2020, based on a 2005 baseline, by the Copenhagen Accord’s January 31 deadline. But there was still some ambiguity about China’s actual relationship to the Copenhagen Accord itself. Now China and India, as well, have written the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat.

China recently confirmed an ambitious goal to reduce its economy’s carbon intensity by 40-45% from 2005 levels by 2020. WRI’s China Director Zou Ji, a former Chinese climate negotiator, discusses the significance of this step by the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, and what it means for China’s relations with the United States and the world.

I am very honored to participate in the famous Guanghua New Year Forum at Peking University. I was tasked by Professor Zhang Weiying to brief you about the Copenhagen Conference and the issues regarding low-carbon development. Climate change is a global issue, affecting the long-term development of each country, and requires strengthening international cooperation and adopting a fair and reasonable approach to solve. In 1990 the United Nations General Assembly established the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee. In 1994 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change took effect. In 2005 the Kyoto Protocol took effect. In 2007 the Bali Road Map came into being, and last year the Copenhagen meeting took place. All these events witnessed the historical process of forming and coalescing international consensus on climate change issues. In the recently-concluded Copenhagen meeting, Premier Wen Jiabao comprehensively expounded China’s policies, measures, achievements and initiatives to address climate change issues. He reached out to leaders from relevant countries, and played a critical role in breaking the deadlocks of the negotiations.

China just released its first ever pollution census – a national survey that collected data from almost six million separate sources , to which China devoted a reported $100 million and 570,000 staff in the collection effort. In late 2006, China’s State Council made the decision to conduct the survey. The Ministry then spent a year preparing, and the actual data collection took place in 2008. The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) has issued aggregated data from the study. There have been numerous press reports in both English and Chinese, but intrepid readers can also find what is essentially the Executive Summary of the report on the web in Chinese*, and there is also a speech by the leader of the study describing more of the process and background.

For those tracking China climate and energy information, you might want to take a look at these blog entries. Blogger Vance Wagner has just updated his organizational chart for the Chinese government to try to capture the new National Energy Commission under the State Council. This chart is still a work in progress, and Vance says he welcomes comments on how to improve it, but it is extremely useful for seeing who is connected to whom in the Chinese government.

China has submitted its proposed climate mitigation actions to the UNFCCC in a letter dated January 28, ahead of the January 31, 2010 deadline in the Copenhagen Accord. Given Premier Wen Jiabao’s hands-on role, along with President Obama and the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa, in creating the Accord last month, it is encouraging to see China demonstrate its commitment to moving global climate negotiations forward.

In its letter, China reaffirmed its earlier announcement of policies to: (1) reduce its carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels, (2) increase the share of non-fossil energy in its primary energy consumption to around 15% by 2020, and (3) increase forest coverage by 40 million hectares and forest stock volume by 1.3 billion cubic meters by 2020 from 2005 levels. China noted that these actions will be implemented in accordance with the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC.

As provided for in last month’s Copenhagen Accord, China has now submitted its “mitigation actions” (click HERE to see the text of the letter in our ChinaFAQs Library). While there was much speculation as to which actions China would submit, in the end China has reported the full set of measures first announced by President Hu Jintao at the United Nations in November 2009, and then amplified by the State Council decision on the 40-45% carbon intensity target at the end of November.

The four BASIC countries, India, China, South Africa and Brazil, met in New Delhi on Sunday, January 24th and announced that they intend to submit their “voluntary mitigation actions” to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat by January 31st, the deadline set in the Copenhagen Accord.

In a new article in the Guardian, World Resources Institute President Jonathan Lash discusses the Copenhagen Accord and what it means for the future of international cooperation on climate change.

From the Guardian: Spin is the political language of Washington, but I have never encountered such conflicting currents of hype as those that have swirled around the globe since the gavel fell on the Copenhagen climate summit. Depending on whether you live in Beijing, Berlin or Boston the assessment ranges from catastrophe to success to somewhere in between. But what lies ahead?

The BASIC Countries (Brazil, China, India and South Africa) have set their next climate coordination meeting for January 24 in New Delhi, and that looks like just part of an environmental relations thaw between India and China, countries that still have territorial disputes dating from their 1962 border war. What better way to win friends than to increase tiger protection, especially right before China ushers in the Chinese zodiac Year of the Tiger, which would likely even increase the demand for the popular Traditional Chinese Medicinal use of tiger bone. The animals are hunted illegally in India and smuggled to China, and for many years Indian conservationists have asked China for help in combating the trade.

National policy on energy conservation and climate change plays an important role in overall national strategy. The 11th Five-Year Plan sets 22 quantitative targets in four categories: economic growth, economic structure, environment and resources, and public services. These are quantifiable national development or economic growth metrics.

Since the Copenhagen Conference the Chinese government has engaged in international debate on the meeting’s meaning, but the external tumult does not appear to have affected its efforts to move forward on policies to reduce carbon intensity.

Your ChinaFAQs team has been in the swirling currents of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations for over a week, attending press conferences and listening in the corridors, but now the negotiators are running out of time. Before dawn today, the BBC World News led with the story that the sticking point in the negotiations is whether China will allow intrusive review of its progress on slowing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, the media can’t resist a food fight, and all week the press has been filled with reports of verbal missiles supposedly being hurled by American and Chinese negotiators. We’ve also seen exaggerated portrayals of the supposedly-huge chasm separating the U.S. and China on questions like whether the U.S. will provide funds to China for clean technology and the extent of monitoring and review of China’s action.

Senior Chinese climate statesman He Jiankun, speaking at the Chinese Pavilion at the Copenhagen Climate Talks, announced that the Chinese carbon intensity would be introduced as legislation to be passed by China’s National People’s Congress, its highest law-making body.

Professor He, the Director of Tsinghua University’s Low Carbon Energy Laboratory and the University’s former Executive Vice President, spoke December 9 as part of a series of regular talks the Chinese are sponsoring in their first ever dedicated space at a major climate meeting.

Professor He emphasized that China’s commitment to making the 40-45% reduction in carbon intensity between 2005 and 2020 will be binding domestically, and that the government would also focus on implementing specific programs to meet it. He argued a carbon intensity goal is the best way to measure progress on climate change mitigation for a country in the midst of rapid industrialization and urbanization.

Covering fully one-third of primary energy use in China, the 1000 Enterprise Program set the goal of reducing energy consumption by 100 million tons coal equivalent by the end of 2010. In November, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced that the program had exceeded that goal two years early – by the end of 2008, the program had saved 106 million tons coal equivalent, resulting in avoiding 265 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.

China’s announcement signals its commitment both to the climate conference in Copenhagen, and its intent to achieve significant domestic emissions reductions.

As we head for our turkeys, the news this morning is that China unveiled its goal to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per unit GDP (its carbon intensity) by 40-45% by 2020, compared with 2005.

When Chinese President Hu Jintao made the first speech by a Chinese leader to the United Nations General Assembly back in September he signaled that China would be announcing a target to reduce its carbon intensity by a “notable amount” relative to business as usual but did not reveal the actual number. Since then there has been much speculation as to what the “notable amount” that President Hu suggested would be.

This week, the talk has become more specific with reports that China will release its number over Thanksgiving weekend, partly in response to President Obama’s announcement today that the United States will in fact bring a numerical target to Copenhagen. The White House press release stated “the President is prepared to put on the table a U.S. emissions reduction target in the range of 17% below 2005 levels in 2020.”

“US president Barack Obama’s first state visit to China and his joint announcement with Chinese president Hu Jintao have renewed hopes for international climate talks, as both countries reaffirmed their commitment to a successful outcome in Copenhagen. This is a welcome development as the talks had fallen into political pessimism following the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, when APEC leaders said they would not seek a binding deal at negotiations this December in Copenhagen, but would work towards a political framework that could eventually lead to a deal.

The world needs a legally binding global deal in Copenhagen if it wants to keep the global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. What we need now is political will and a demonstration of leadership, particularly from the United States and China. The key to reaching this lies in fostering cooperation in areas like clean energy and low-carbon technology between the two countries, with an ultimate goal of setting long-term emissions reduction targets that are more concrete.”

With President Obama’s arrival in Beijing this afternoon, discussions of climate and energy are in high gear. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steve Chu kicked off bilateral discussions with a roundtable at the Chinese State Guest House with their Chinese government counterparts from the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Energy Administration, as well as a group of Chinese and American businesspeople, academics and NGOs.

One extraordinary success in the past few months has been Chinese climate negotiators much more effective public relations strategy. They are getting their main messages out in the press, speaking actively about China’s own programs and their expectations of other parties. This contrasts with China’s former reticence except in the context of a very stilted Ministry of Foreign Affairs press briefing.

Returning to the climate, Chinese negotiators were in active meeting mode last week. The Asia-Pacific Partnership met in Shanghai, with representatives from Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea and the United States, while a Chinese-EU Workshop on Technology met in the same conference center.

Much media attention was focused on whether there would be a separate U.S.-China bilateral climate agreement, and the rather unsurprising story is that there won’t be. The United States and China actually signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together on climate change and clean energy back in July. I hear there is plenty of activity going on and likely to be new programs and projects announced soon and over the next few months.

This headline surprised me this week: “China Outperforms U.S. on Green,” especially when I discovered that it was a piece in the New Scientist about our own WRI report on China. The commentator implies WRI’s report shows China is way ahead of the U.S., when in fact we present an argument simply that China is following its own pretty effective path. China is still struggling with air and water pollution issues, and its situation is akin to the United States in the early 1970s when we were just bringing into effect our major air and water laws, as well as establishing the Environmental Protection Agency.

With Copenhagen less than two months away, China’s international climate change relations seem in permanent high gear. This week was notable both for a new Memorandum of Understanding between China and India on climate change cooperation, and for a telephone call between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao to encourage progress toward Copenhagen.

Expectations had been raised high, perhaps unrealistically so before President Hu’s speech to the UN General Assembly, September 22. Friends in China had been telling everyone, including lots of reporters, that President Hu would say something about carbon intensity. Indeed he did, promising to “cut carbon intensity per unit GDP by a notable margin.” (see Hu Jintao’s Speech on Climate Change) But many had expected more news, not just a confirmation of what was earlier rumor. The most significant news was that this was the first time a Chinese President had ever attended the UN General Assembly, and he chose climate change as his topic. (Commentary: Hu Jintao remains short on detail). Equally importantly, President Hu’s speech addressed China’s specific policies – reducing energy intensity and increasing the use of renewables and of forest cover in ways that will lead to a directly measurable reduction in carbon intensity.

From calls to action in New York, the focus then turned to Bangkok the following week, where one of the many United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings in preparation for the big meeting in Copenhagen in December. The meeting was difficult. It seemed like many parties wanted more from others than they would offer themselves. The United States is obviously a particular focus. Without a climate change bill it is unable to make specific commitments on mitigation targets or on funding amounts (No deal on crucial issues as UN climate talks end).

U.S. legislation to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is focused on establishing a “cap-and-trade” system. Some Americans wonder why China’s carbon reduction policies look different than those of the US and question whether these other mechanisms are comparable or effective.

China’s recent statements and policy initiatives demonstrate growing concerns about energy security, pollution and the ability to sustain long-term economic strategies for reducing poverty (China’s per-capita GDP is less than one-tenth of U.S. levels, and about half of its 1.3 billion people earn less than $2 per day). Indeed, China confronts a challenge no other large, emerging economy has ever faced: fostering rapid economic growth while at the same time limiting harmful emissions.

China’s “Top-1000 Energy-Consuming Enterprises Program” focuses on energy efficiency improvements in large enterprises that make up 33% of China’s energy use and a similar share of energy-related CO2 emissions.

Almost all of the 1,000 large enterprises have developed energy efficiency plans, which so far have produced more than 10,000 energy saving projects.

At the program’s current rate, benefits will exceed the initial goal of saving 100 million tons of coal-equivalent by 2010, an emissions reduction of about 250 million tons of CO2.

Joshua Busby is an Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas’ Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and a fellow in the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service as well as a Crook Distinguished Scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. He originally joined the LBJ School faculty in fall 2006 as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer. Prior to coming to UT, Dr.

Edward Cunningham is an Assistant Professor at Boston University’s Geography and Environment & Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. His research focuses on the political economy of development and, more specifically, comparative energy governance. He employs surveys and qualitative case studies to examine the relationship between political structure and industrial structure, and the strategies states and firms adopt to manage risk in economic development. His current work assesses the impact of governance decentralization on the environmental sustainability and productivity of energy markets, particularly in China and Indonesia.

Erica S. Downs is a Fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. Previously, she worked as an energy analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, and a lecturer at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, China. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. from Princeton University and a B.S. from Georgetown University.

Meredydd Evans is an energy policy and finance expert with 17 years of international experience. She has worked on energy efficiency and clean energy policies and projects in numerous countries. She is a senior staff scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which she is managing a program on international sustainable energy, including efforts on greenhouse gas mitigation, building energy codes, district heating and clean energy investments. She began working at PNNL in 1994, and she was seconded to the International Energy Agency in Paris from 2002-2006.

Dr. Carla Freeman is Associate Research Professor of China Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University and the Director of the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute (FPI). She holds a BA in History from Yale and an MA in China studies and international economics and PhD in international relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS. Before joining the SAIS faculty, she was a political risk consultant covering China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, and later worked as a program officer for civil society and community development and sustainability at The Johnson Foundation. Her recent research has examined China’s environmental governance and sustainable development, with her current work focused on the politics of China’s carbon mitigation strategies.

A Truman Scholar, she has a MALD and PhD in international affairs from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, and an AB from Occidental College. She speaks Spanish and basic Mandarin Chinese. She is the author of China Shifts Gears: Automakers, Oil, Pollution, and Development (The MIT Press 2006), editor of Acting in Time on Energy Policy (Brookings Institution Press 2009), and numerous academic articles and policy reports.

Valerie J. Karplus is an Assistant Professor in the Global Economics and Management Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of the China Energy and Climate Project (CECP) at MIT.

Her research focuses on resource and environmental management in firms operating in diverse national and industry contexts, with an emphasis on emerging markets and the role of policy. Dr. Karplus is an expert on China’s energy system, including technology trends, energy system governance, and the sustainability impact of business decisions. She leads the China Energy and Climate Project at MIT, an international collaborative team of researchers principally from MIT and Tsinghua University focused on China’s role in global energy markets and climate change mitigation.

Dr. Karplus has previously worked in the development policy section of the German Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, Germany, as a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow, and in the biotechnology industry in Beijing, China, as a Luce Scholar and employee of the National Institute for Biological Sciences, Beijing.

She holds a BS in biochemistry and political science from Yale University and a PhD in engineering systems from MIT.

David Kline is the Manager of the Market and Policy Impact Analysis Group in the Strategic Energy Analysis Center of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He also manages NREL’s work in support of the U.S.-China Renewable Energy Partnership, one of the cooperative programs that grew out of visits to China by President Obama in 2009. Before coming to NREL in 1991, he led the natural gas planning and forecasting group at the California Energy Commission and worked in the corporate planning office of the Natomas Company.

His research is focused on international energy policy, with an emphasis on China, Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa; China’s Village Electrification Program; Global Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention; and Greenhouse gas mitigation.

He holds a B.S. in mathematics from Stanford University and a
M.S. and Ph.D. in management science and engineering from Stanford University.

Bo Kong is the ConocoPhillips Petroleum Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies and Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma’s College of International Studies.

He is also Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Senior Associate in the Energy and National Security Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), member of the Advisory Board for the Revenue Watch Institute, member of the International Editorial Board for the Universiti of Kebangsaan Malaysia’ journal—JEBAT: Mal

Dept. of International and Area Studies
Cate Center 4bo.kong@ou.edu
(405) 325-1584

Michael A. Levi is the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and the environment and director of the program on energy security and climate change at the Council on Foreign Relations. He directed CFR’s Independent Task Force on climate change in 2007–2008. His most recent book, The Power Surge, was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press. His previous book, On Nuclear Terrorism, was published by Harvard University Press in 2007. He received his PhD in war studies from the University of London (King’s College) and his MA in physics from Princeton University.

Mackay Miller is a Senior Research Analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, USA, where he manages international collaborations with China, Mexico, India, and South Africa. His areas of focus include grid integration of renewable energy, smart grid deployment, and policy and regulatory issues across the clean energy spectrum. He coordinates several bilateral and multilateral initiatives including the US-China Renewable Energy Partnership and 21st Century Power Partnership. He also leads NREL support for the International Smart Grid Action Network and coordinates the Clean Energy Regulators Initiative. His recent publications include “Flexibility in 21st Century Power Systems,” “Market Evolution: Wholesale Electricity Market Design for 21st Century Power Systems” and “RES-E-NEXT: Next Generation RES-E Policy.” He holds an MBA from the University of Colorado, and a BA in International Relations from Brown University.

Jonathan Moch is a Graduate Research Fellow at the Harvard China Project and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences with Harvard’s Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Group. Jonathan’s research interests center on the interactions and feedbacks between climate change and atmospheric chemistry, with a particular focus on China.

Clayton Munnings is a Research Associate at Resources for the Future, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington DC. Clayton’s research focuses on the use of market-based instruments to reduce carbon emissions in developed and developing countries, including China. Clayton holds a BS in Science of Natural and Environmental Systems with a concentration in Environmental and Resource Economics from Cornell University.

Jane Nakano is a fellow in the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Her research focus includes nuclear energy policy and technology trends globally, energy security issues in Asia, and unconventional energy development in the United States. Prior to joining CSIS in 2010, Nakano was with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and served as the lead staff on U.S. energy engagements with China and Japan. She was responsible for coordinating DOE engagement in the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, U.S.-China Energy Policy Dialogue, and U.S.-Japan Energy Dialogue. She also worked on U.S. energy engagement with Indonesia, North Korea, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. From 2001 to 2002, she served at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo as special assistant to the energy attaché. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Dr. Huei Peng is a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan and Director of the US Clean Vehicle Consortium of the US-China Clean Energy Research Center. His research interests include adaptive control and optimal control, with emphasis on their applications to vehicular and transportation systems. His current research focuses include design and control of hybrid electric vehicles and vehicle active safety systems.

Edward Steinfeld is an professor of political economy in the MIT Department of Political Science. Steinfeld directs the MIT China Program (MISTI), and co-directs the MIT Industrial Performance Center’s China Energy Group.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Political Scienceedstein@mit.edu
(617) 253-4130

Ailun Yang is a Senior Associate on WRI’s major emerging economies team, where she leads the efforts to build the case for low-carbon development in a number of major developing countries such as China and India. In this capacity, she is tasked to design, plan, and execute research and policy analysis in order to influence national debates and build the evidence base to accelerate clean technology deployment and sustainable low-carbon development. Her current work focus is on the global coal market and China’s power sector.